220 
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
seems to almost universally diminish from South to North, 
the average fineness of Victorian gold being given as 96 per 
cent., New South Wales 93, and Queensland 87. The purest 
Australian gold hitherto known is from Maryborough, in 
Victoria, assaying 99 # 3 per cent. 
Another character of the Mount Morgan gold, and one by 
no means so satisfactory, is the extremely fine state of 
division in which it occurs, making the washing after crushing 
a very profligate process. The “ tailings” which would in 
ordinary cases be thrown away are here said to retain half 
the gold, and are therefore stored for treatment by the process 
of dissolving by chlorine, and subsequent precipitation of the 
gold by sulphate of iron. Dr. Leibius, of the Sydney mint, 
experimenting on about 4cwt. of the crushed stone, could 
extract by amalgamation less than half of the gold present, 
and only a very small additional quantity was obtained by 
again milling with mercury. 
There seems a considerable probability of other geysers 
having been in action at the same period in the same district, 
and indeed all over the Tertiary volcanic districts of Queens¬ 
land, and of course the discovery of the riches of Mount 
Morgan has given an enormous impetus to prospecting in 
localities where the conditions seem at all similar; but then 
again the possibility, indeed probability, must be recognised 
that the occurrence of the gold in the old thermal spring 
was local, and that not every old geyser hill and basin is 
auriferous. 
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
BY WM. MATHEWS, M. A. 
(Continued from page 204.) 
The next writer to be mentioned is Thomas Purton (1768 
—1833), the author of the “ Midland Flora," or “ Botanical 
Description of British Plants in the Midland Counties." The 
first two volumes of this work were published at Stratford- 
on-Avon in 1817, the third in London in 1821. Purton was 
a surgeon, residing at Alcester, a Warwickshire town on the 
eastern side of the Ridgeway, which divides the counties of 
Warwick and Worcester. It does not appear that, under the 
term “ Midland," Purton restricted himself to any definite 
geographical area, as he notices plants from Warwick, 
Worcester. Stafford, Hereford, Salop, Derby, Gloucester, 
Oxford, and even Monmouth. His most numerous references 
